Criminal misdemeanor: problem issues of theory and practice

The article is devoted to the problematic issues of introducing the institute of criminal misdemeanors into criminal and criminal procedural legislation. The purpose of the study was to determine the shortcomings in the conceptual provision of the introduction of the institute of criminal offenses and to determine the ways of their correction. To achieve the goal, a range of scientific research methods were used (dialectical, historical, logico-semantic analysis, comparative, systemic analysis, methods of formal logic, method of legal forecasting). They were used to analyze the provisions of criminal, criminal procedural law and legislation on administrative offenses that touched on the topic of research, scientific sources and the formulation of author's conclusions and proposals. The relevance of the research topic is due to the fact that in 2018, changes were made to the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which were conceptually different from the system of criminal law norms that existed at that time. The term "criminal misdemeanor" was introduced into the conceptual apparatus, which necessitated a significant revision of the classification of criminal offenses (previously they were all called crimes). But this process took place in an unusual order, namely after the use of the concept of a criminal misdemeanor in the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, adopted in 2012. Thus, the need to change the norms of substantive law was determined by the norms of procedural law, designed to be only a form of implementation of criminal law norms. Of course, such an order could not fail to lead to a number of various shortcomings (formal definition of the concept of criminal misdemeanors, lack of criteria for distinguishing them from crimes and administrative offenses, etc.). There were inaccuracies and contradictions in the wording of the prescriptions of the criminal procedural legislation regarding the investigation of criminal misdemeanors in the form of inquiry (simplified form of pre-trial investigation). The article analyzes problematic issues from the point of view of the practice of applying legal norms regarding pretrial investigation of criminal misdemeanors. In particular, the content of the investigator's procedural actions before entering information about a criminal misdemeanor into the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations is determined: accepting a statement and receiving explanations; receiving things and documents from the victim; conducting a medical examination; seizure of things and documents that were the direct subject of a criminal offense; removal of information from video surveillance cameras, car recorders, smartphones of eyewitnesses and other technical devices and means; obtaining a specialist's opinion. The urgency of these procedural actions of the inquirer is noted and attention is drawn to contradictions in the legislative prescriptions regarding their implementation, it is proposed to make changes to certain procedural norms in order to optimize them. A conclusion is made about the need for conceptual improvement of the institute of criminal misdemeanors, the directions of such improvement are determined.

criminal misdemeanor, Unified register of pre-trial investigations, inquiries, procedural actions, simplified court proceedings